The inventive concept relates to a surface inspecting method, and more particularly, a surface inspecting method using an optical method.
In manufacturing semiconductor elements, patterns designed for each manufacturing process may need to be accurately formed in the semiconductor elements. In order to inspect the patterns, shapes of the semiconductor elements are optically observed, but it may be difficult to accurately analyze nanoscale patterns due to low resolutions.
In order to solve the low resolutions, specific shapes are analyzed using an electron microscope. However, when using the electron microscope, the semiconductor elements are cut into cross-sections and the measurements are performed in a vacuum state. Thus, an inspection rate is slow and it is difficult to select various measurement regions.